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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Thanks tirong  ! Asteg ehhh :)We all need to vent once in a while. Thank you for listening. Check out the Blogging Newsletter!
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I've been thinking about this year and all the things that happened in it—all the things that happened to me. Some good, some bad, some hard, some easy. I've had a lot of annoyances, a lot of scrapes, but also a lot of successes and good times. I started blogging around March this year (if my memory serves me right). I graduated this August. I sprained an ankle and had it massaged back into place (remember Benny?  ). I got together with Ramon. I met a lot of new friends and lost contact with a lot of old ones. My simple, boring life. But I love it.Those I've mentioned above are the only things I can remember specifically right now, but my year (and yours also) is made up of little things, little moments that made you smile, or thank God, or that just made you plain happy. These little things are most often overlooked, and seldom remembered, but putting them all together, they make up our everyday life. (I swear, I'm not trying to sound all poetic here). I know I should be thankful for even the littlest things, but sometimes I forget. I don't know if I'm just too busy, or too preoccupied to notice, or too consumed in something else. I just hope I'm not becoming ungrateful, cause God has given me so much already. Recently I feel like I haven't talked to God that much and that bothers me. He is the most important Person in my life and I know that He's always here just beside me but lately I feel like I've ignored Him? I always want Him to be my focus and my priority, but I don't think that that is the case lately. I don't do New Years Resolutions, but maybe I can try to do better with all my bad departments. To tell you the truth, lately I feel like I'm becoming such a brat. And I don't like it one bit. 2007—I really hope I can get back to regular blogging, too! I so miss everything about it, but somehow I just don't have the energy to do it. Update on our move-our visas still haven't arrived, and that's surprising. Everybody estimated it to arrive either November and December, and this month is almost over. Not that I'm complaining about it, you all know it would be very hard for me to leave, but Papa and Maricor can't wait to fly and get there already. We know though that God's timing is perfect so we're not worried about it. If it is His will for us to go then by God no devil in hell can stop that from happening. I'll try to swing by your blogs later today. Please please I want out of this lazy funk! It's especially hard to move cause the weather has been really lazy and cold, too. The coldest months here in the Phi are December to March and it's the perfect 'cold'—that's why we get a lot of tourists these times, cause they're all trying to escape hard winters or other extreme weathers. They want what we have, the 'perfect winter weather'. That sounds stupid doens't it.Before I leave (have to go whip up some delicious lunch) I want to say congrats to Startiara  for becoming yellow!  Terrific.I miss you all! |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi everybody, I'm still too tired to go through everyone's blogs at the moment, but I want to greet all of you a very Merry Christmas! We just got back from my grandma's house and up to this time I'm still too stuffed. Now I'm in the process of sorting through pictures and uploading them, and I can't wait for this to be over so that I can finally crawl into bed. I want to tell you all how pretty Manila is today and how fun it has all been but I'm just too tired—TOO TIRED! It's pretty funny cause I can still remember my 2005 WdC Christmas—I remember entering a couple of contests and winning some but there were no heaps of warm wishes, the kind that I have experienced this year Blogging has made all the difference, I think. So I just want to say I love you all, and I mean it.My head is nodding off. Before I completely space out in front of this PC, I want to say a huge thank you to Ronis brain tumor is gone! for everything.   Have a great Christmas and enjoy every minute of it, as I have! God bless you all. |
| I just got home from the mall with Maricor at around 9:00 PM tonight and the moment I stepped inside the house my father's big grin greeted me. "Surprise!" he yelled. Maricor and I went all, "Huh?" "Surprise!" Papa yelled again, this time gesturing to the table. My eyes widened when I saw a big basket of red and white roses. "Guess who it's from?" Papa asked. "Lasha?" I tried, pertaining to our rich neighbor. On our way home we passed his enormous house and saw that there was a party. "Nope," Dad said in delight. Maricor was about to guess more but Papa beat us to it. "It's from Debbie!" "Who... Deb Welker?" Maricor asked in a kidding tune. She didn't think it was really from Deb, but it really was! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Look at my Papa's goofy grin. The card simply read, "Merry Christmas to the Ilao Family." Thank you so much for the wonderful gift welkerdeb! You're an angel and we appreciate the flowers very much. We appreciate YOU more, though! |
I think Christmas here in WdC is as hectic as in real life  I've been participating with a couple of activities and having loads of fun, so far! For the past month... okay, two... okay, three... or four, I have neglected reviewing, and now participating in these activities have forced me to review again. Not a bad thing!My sister Equilibrium is hosting this shop kind of thing so if you're not too busy with your Christmas shopping I'd encourage you to drop by!
I've also been participating in terryjroo's Christmas activity, "Invalid Item"  . My Secret Santa has been very kind and generous, he/she had just gifted me the season tickets I wanted! If there's any chance you're reading this, I want to say thank you again, from the bottom of my heart!I'm sorry I haven't been around that much lately, I thought I was on a streak last week with consecutive blue numbers, but I fell behind again.  The thing is I don't want to force my writing cause when I do whatever I write always turns out to be sucky. I so wish I could blog again everyday like I used to but hey, maybe after Christmas, right?I love the Christmas feeling but its rush and craziness is kind of daunting sometimes. Traffic is horrid and malls are crammed to the full. Last night I was at this one mall with Ramon and he said that the people looked liked crazy swarming bees. Yep, Filipinos all have black hair and for some reason a lot of people were wearing yellow last night, so you can just imagine!  I told him, "Hey, we're one of the bees, too." Thankfully I was wearing black and he was wearing blue. As I am typing this Papa is slicing the Christmas ham Ramon bought for us last night. Yep, it's another one of our traditional Christmas foods! It's this big ball of ham that's really yummy. It's just funny cause as he is slicing the thing he accidentally manages to wave the knife around and E is right beside him, eating. Everytime the knife swings in her direction she makes the funniest face and I can't help but crack up Now my dad is dancing in this really goofy way and Maricor is still making a face Anyway, I want to thank welkerdeb, zwisis and Startiara for the lovely cNotes they've given me lately. You're both very wonderful people and I look up to you ladies in a way you will never know. Speaking of admirable ladies, kudos to scarlett_o_h for yet another great issue of the Blogville News. Congratulations to Budroe for winning BOTM, too! |
| Christmas is usually associated with fun, loving, oh-so-heartwarming memories. What I want to hear from you is if you have a horrible Christmas memory. I'm racking my brain to see if I come up with something.   As a kid I used to throw up a lot. Okay, I know that sounds really gross but it's true! Especially when travelling. I get dizzy and my stomach would turn upside down. Then my very unfortunate seatmate would experience what a 'roller-coaster ride' really means. Yep, they're all rolling and coasting away from me as I start to puke greacefully.Where's the horrible Christmas memory in that, you ask? Give me a minute, I kinda lost track, too. Yeah... so we usually travel around Christmas time. And of course that's when I usually barf. Eww. So those times were really unpleasant, not horrible, but unpleasant. Yuck.  I have this one aunt on my mother's side who's filthy rich. Every Christmas there's always the aginaldo part where your aunts and uncles give you money besides the gifts. Normally they just hand it to you while you guys are talking or greeting each other or whatever. But nooo, this aunt make us (the kids) all line up in front of every aunt and uncle in order to get the aginaldo. Imagine a long line of stupid-looking kids waiting their turn just to be given some money. That had always been annoying, not horrible, but annoying.Man, this is hard! Looks like I've got no horrible Christmas memory. No wonder it's my favorite holiday.  Heyyy, the same aunt gave me this really heavy gift one Christmas! It was wrapped and it looked nice so I was pretty excited about it. When I opened it though, I was disappointed to the core. It was an old jigsaw puzzle in an ancient, torn box... with the bonus of a lost-looking, rusty key inside! Later on when we tried to put it together we couldn't finish it for a lot of pieces were missing. How stingy can one get! And remember, she's filthy rich!Disappointing, yes, but still not horrible!  One of our traditional Christmas foods is the queso de bola. It's this big ball of really tasty, really salty cheese covered in shiny red wrapper so it looks like a bauble. When you eat it you have to peel the wrapper first, and any normal person would throw the thing, but noooo, not my crazy elder sister.Ate Grace offered Maricor and me this red Christmas candies one Christmas. They were round and very yummy-looking so Maricor and I obliged and dug in. We spat every one of them out, of course. Turned out that those candies were the queso de bola's wrapper turned and rounded over and over on my sister's palm so that it would look just like candies. While E's and my nose steamed our sister just laughed like mad. How stupid! Very stupid but still not horrible!!! Oo-kay, so maybe I have no horrible Christmas memory. Not really surprising, since Christmas is just plain wonderful. I sound like a sap again, but who cares? Just ten more days before Christmas, people! A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! O night divine, the night when Christ was born. |
| 1 of the reasons why you shouldn't get out of bed: If you go out, you might meet someone interesting, and you might fall in love. If you fall in love, you will suffer. Don't suffer. Stay in bed. Jessica Zafra, writer. Good morning people! I'm trying to sound all cheerful but let me tell you that I really don't feel like doing it. It's my second day today (you know, that girl thing) and I still feel like s***. Usually the feeling shitty part always happens only on my first day, so I don't know what happened this month that made it extend. Everything is painful, and that sucks. It's especially annoying since its E's Birthday Today!!! Well to you guys it's not for a couple more hours at least, but you all know we're half a day advanced to most of you. We have a busy day ahead of us cause she's having a mini-party tonight and all that. Well, I'm gonna cook for her and her cute wholesome friends, I love them. But first we have to go shopping. I hope I feel better soon cause it sucks to move in this condition. |
| This entry is inspired by David McClain 's "Invalid Entry" ... I love Christmas. As a kid I would feel the 'Christmas air' as early as September. People would start decorating around October. We would start with our own decorations early November or something like that. The carollers, oh, if they could they would start around August! The whole family and I would be outside the house and in our garden, carrying old boxes of all kinds of Christmas decors. My dad would start with the Christmas lights, we love 'em. I was around nine or ten at that time so I really wasn't much help. My duty was to give coins to all the pesky children carollers. Yes, we call them pesky because all they do is pest you! They hardly sing, they just ask for money. And when they do sing, it's hard to appreciate them because they're all either off-key/dull-toned/shrill. Then after the horrible singing, they'd yell an even shriller NAMAMASKO PO!!! which means, "TIME TO GIVE US MONEY!" or something like that. I then would walk over to them and give them 1 peso—2 pesos if I'm in a good mood. Then I would go back to my place to watch my Dad and sister on the lights, ignoring the very famous Christmas song that the kid carollers would sing: "Thank you, thank you, AMBABARAT NINYO THANK YOU!" Translation: Thank you, thank you, YOU ARE ALL SO CHEAP THANK YOU! Oh, well, you can't please everybody. Anyway, as soon as the decors were up, it was time to think about the gifts we'd be giving each other. I always counted how much money I had then I would start dividing it into four. We never talked about it but come Christmas day everybody always had a gift from everybody. The we would go do the major Christmas shopping. We'd leave early morning and come back late at night with bags and bags of gifts for our relatives and friends. The next day we would wrap all the gifts up; that would take the whole day, too. Afterwards I would have a good time staring at all the colorfully-wrapped gifts, those always looked beautiful. Christmas in the Phi is something else. Come Decemeber people always seem to be out the house, the streets are never empty. Every place is always holding some festivity of any kind, and beautiful, large bright parols are everywhere. They are huge handmade stars and people hang them in any place they'd look good. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Parol We also have Misa de Gallo, or Midnight Mass as you may call it. It starts at December 16 and ends at midnight of December 24. It's called midnight mass but actually it is being held from 4 am to 5 am. There's a saying that if you complete all days of the Misa, at the final night you can make a wish and it will come true. Haha, cute right? I'm not a fan of Midnight Mass (cause it's more fun to sleep!) but I go once in a while. No Filipino Christmas is ever complete without the bibingka and puto bumbong, too. Bibingka is a rice cake similar to the Western pancake in appearance. In taste, texture and way of cooking, however, they are very much different from each other. Bibingka is made from galapong, baked in a special clay pot, lined with a piece of banana leaf, with live coals on top and underneath. It is topped with slices of kesong puti (white cheese) and itlog na maalat (salted duck eggs). The newly-cooked bibingka is spread with butter and sometimes sprinkled with sugar then served with niyog (grated coconut). Meanwhile Puto bumbong is a uniquely prepared delicacy. It is a purple-colored dish cooked in standing bamboo or metal tubes attached to a steam producing tin can or cylinder mounted on a small saucepot of boiling water or steam. “Puto” means steamed glutinous rice, and “Bumbong” means bamboo cannon. These are traditional midnight mass delicacies here in the Philippines. Over the years our family business started getting from bad to worse, so we had to change a lot regarding the usual things we do on Christmas. The decorations we put up started becoming sparer, smaller, less brighter. We also decided to just pick names off a hat instead of giving everybody on our family gifts, that way we would spend less. Christmas shopping eventually went nonexistent, too. Sure, we'd manage to buy some things for a couple of my kid cousins, but the grand gift-giving went out the window. We also learned the art of recycling (and no, I do not believe that that is bad gift-giving ettiquette!) These things happened as I was growing up into puberty and teenhood, and somehow I always understood where our family stood. We have always stuck together regardless whether times were good or bad. Lacking materially and financially on Christmas season didn't affect me that much, even though I used to be so used with everything being grand and stuff. Maybe it's because my parents have always told us what the true meaning of Christmas really is. It's the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Everything is so gift-centered, Santa-centered, fruitcake-centered, whatever-the-heck-centered nowadays that sometimes people lose track of the real meaning of this holiday. It's sad, but it's a fact. And I believe that's why a lot of people get so depressed or down on Christmas. It's because they lose grasp of its real meaning. I'm not saying that giving gifts, Secret Santas, or eating fruitcakes on Christmas is bad, in fact these are good things to do and they're also loads of fun! But I appeal that let's not forget why there is a Christmas Day anyway. Let our celebrations' main reason be the birth of our Lord. Let us humble our hearts before Him and thank Him for everything He has given us, however big or small. Let us have grateful hearts because the Father have given us the best gift there is—eternal life through Christ the Lord. Christmas this year for us would be very abundant, I believe. The move is most likely to happen next year and we would want for our mother to come home to the Phi and be spared of the Canadian winter. All God-willing. We may not have decorations this year, but this time we're just plain lazy to do them!  Oh, and those kid carollers seemed to have taken a much-wanted vacation this year, thank God! |
| After I wrote my last entry (previous to this one) and right after having my lunch I was again attacked by stomach aches anyone wouldn't normally have. I drank medicine and continued the regular trips to the toilet, then tried sleeping in order not to feel anything. I woke up with the ugliest feeling. I was breaking in cold sweat and my stomach would hurt really bad every two minutes or so. I tried eating, took more medicine, and took even more friendly trips to the throne. I started crying softly from the pain, and then my dad and I had to get into an argument. I admit that I am a stubborn person and I didn't want to do the things that my father told me to do. When he tells me to drink this medicine, I don't do it and I always defend why I don't, not in a decent way. So then my friend Mike had to appear and catch my dad telling me off a little. By that time I was curled up in a ball at the edge of the couch, waiting for the next pain attack. While Mike was here my dad and I made up and it was good cause things were resolved, and it wouldn't have been brought out into the open if all these things didn't happen. But by the time Mike left my stomach started hurting so badly again that I couldn't take it anymore—I started bawling. I mean I was doubled over in agony with a very wet and very crumpled face, and as that agonizing pain went on I started crying out to God. I think I said "Help me Lord" over and over and the more I said it the more the pain slowly but surely went away. When it was finally gone I was sitting in the couch catching my breath when suddenly things came to mind. I realized a lot of things, and I do mean A LOT. Now I'm not gonna go into specifics but I think that God taught me a lot of lesson. I'm not saying that He was the one who inflicted that pain upon me, of course that's not it. Sicknesses and diseases are from the enemy and what happened to me were ugly attacks. But I'm sure that if all these things didn't happen, if I didn't go through all that pain, I would never have realized a lot of things. I could've went on with my destructive ways and that would've led me to more pain and trouble in the future. I had a good talk with God that time. Afterwards I felt cleansed, and then I was sure that I was healed. You can't explain it, but you just know. My appetite started to come back and by dinnertime I was craving for some congee. I texted Ramon, who was at that time just on his way home from work, and told him to buy me some. So he went over and brought me some that night, and I ate everything in that bowl! I was so happy that I didn't feel the need to puke or go take a dump after eating all that. It settled quite nicely in my stomach, in fact So I was even more fine yesterday morning, I even went out later the day to see some friends. I had dinner out with Ramon and we ate this delicious Bacolod Chicken Inasal and at the beginning I was kind of worried about my stomach, but nothing bad happened. Actually, I can still imagine that fabulous Inasal Chicken... yummy! It was worth Ramon's every penny I even managed to stay out late last night without any problems with dear old tummy. Thank God for His goodness! Equilibrium went to the NU Rock Awards last night (major rock even here in our country) and when she came home she had this bag of burger and fries with her. Now when she came home I just got home myself and Ramon and I ate a good meal at our favorite 24-hour tapsihan. E was offering fries and burger to me, and normally I would've accepted, even though I was very full myself! But last night I refused food, for the first time in the longest time. I knew I was full and it wouldn't be right to eat anything anymore, and it definitely wouldn't be good for my stomach, so I didn't. It's kind of like an achievement! |
| Yours truly enjoyed the past weekend tremendously but fell sick on Tuesday morning. Up until last night I haven't been feeling well—I had diarrhea yesterday and my stomach was at its worst. Thank God that when I woke up this morning, the aches haven't been that severe. (I cried the first major stomachache because it hurt so bad and I had trouble breathing.) I'm claiming that I'm already healed, I had breakfast a while ago and my stomach didn't hurt anymore like it used to the past two days everytime I ate something. Lesson I've learned from the whole ordeal? DO NOT SKIP MEALS AND DO NOT IGNORE YOUR HUNGER. I did, that Tuesday morning when it started. Tut tut tut We have another typhoon on the country, name's Reming and it's been causing severe damages on provinces down south. The weather stations cancelled classes on all levels today because they predicted that it was going to hit Manila this very day. Stops typing to look out the window... Hmmm. I ain't seeing a single drop of rain Anyway, I really don't have anything to say, I just wanted you guys to know why I haven't been to your blogs lately. You really have no idea how much I miss you all. I'm especially missing welkerdeb's humor, and I don't even know why Hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things very soon! So don't forget all about me, alright!By the way, I've been using Ramon's iPod the past couple of days, and it drove me nuts why I haven't been able to put pictures in there. I've tried everything, done everything, but none worked. How come? Well, don't ask me... I'm drawing a blank. A little help, all you iPod users out there? |
| With the past couple of days and having to always read all about Thanksgiving, I remembered the only time I got to eat turkey. My Aunt brought some home from Canada and we were having dinner at my other aunt's place. Turkey's taste was... well, not so tasty. Kinda ordinary, if you want my honest opinion. Maybe it's the way they cooked it, huh? Whenever that aunt from Canada takes a vacation here in the Phi, and cooks, everybody complains cause it's always matabang or lacking spice. Filipinos are used to really tasty foods, those with the flavors exploding in the mouth. Hey, you wanna know what else we eat here? Not that I've eaten them myself, even I gag at the thought of some of them. But in different provinces people eat almost everything for pulutan or finger food whenever there's an inuman. Bayawak (alligators), dogs, frogs, beatles, ducks, snakes, rabbits, birds, dragonflies, even (DRUMROLL PLEASE) termites! Eww! They have different ways of cooking them, lots of recipes and stuff. Personally I have only tried the duck. And I'm so pissed that they kill and eat dogs. Besides the fact that it's very unhealthy, it's also... inhumane. Thank God that there's recently been a move to ban the killing and eating of dogs. --------------- This week has been very busy for me, well, in my opinion at least. I've seen friends almost every night... Ramon, too. He even dropped by last night and brought me Quickly, my favorite kind of bubble tea. It was a quick visit, his cousin Nichol was with him, smoking quietly in the passenger's seat (BTW that dude is only sixteen years old and he already has two kids from two different women! Talk about... never mind!) so anywhere where was I? Yeah, it was a quick visit but a thoughtful one nevertheless. I'm a very happy girl except for the fact that we might not be seeing each other today... and it's Saturday! Sucks! --------------- GG very happy gifted me a season ticket! Thanks so much Mel you're precious!The latest issue of the Blogville News is also out. Considering that scarlett_o_h has been through a lot lately, it's amazing that she still managed to put together a fabulous issue... and the contributors also did a great job! Nice!  "Invalid Entry" Congrats to emmyloo for winning BOTM, too! |
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